


Nothing

by straeon



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: Angst, M/M, Not Shippy, cw emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4868252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straeon/pseuds/straeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert following today's episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing

_I’m a coward._

_I admit that. I’m - I’m sorry._

 

He always knew it, really. Always taking the easy options, like his dad always told him - always putting what he wanted first, always making other people pay for his sins, always avoiding the consequences as best he could.

Never actually trying to change from that.

The best he could do was pretend to be something else - but at his core, he was always a coward.

Never facing up to anything - even his own emotions.

No. He couldn’t even face suffering the consequences of what he’d done, not for a single day, that had to be others’ to feel. They would suffer for what he’d done.

Looking into those eyes that had been so, so blue under the clouded sunlight on the side of an empty road, that had been so welcoming on a cold, cast out day, now he saw they were grey, as stone. And they were empty. Of anything he’d once sought in them.

But that wasn’t what he was seeking this time.

It was his suffering.

Who else had suffered like he had? Been hated by their family like he had? Made so many mistakes, hated himself, been eaten up by guilt, been left empty when it had taken away everything he had?

Who else could he stamp into the ground to put him lower than he was, to stop the pure _hatred_ he felt for himself now.

The only thing he’d wanted was to not hurt Andy?

God, sometimes it felt like all he did was lie.

It was himself - that was the only person Robert didn’t want to hurt.

When it came down to it? What was easier - saving his own brother from a world of pain or saving his own skin? He’d push him to the edge before, he’d gone through all the guilt, that had eaten him up, he was sorry and if there was anything he could change -

But now, he pushed him to the edge again. His choices were laid out before him. Would he do the same thing again? Would he ruin lives, like he had, again?

Yes.

 

_Literally a failure at everything._

Even as the words came spilling out of his mouth, like venom, he knew they were for himself. (It was so fucking easy to find every single toxic word and spit it out.) Years and years he’d spent building this all up for himself, finally even winning his family back, and now all he saw around him were his failures.

He didn’t want to make himself feel better. How could he? He wanted to drag someone else down with him. Who else did he know how to crush like this?

He knew he was a coward. He was sorry.

But not sorry enough.

Not until he looked into his eyes and saw there was nothing more to take away from him. There _were_ no more feelings to use and crush for his own gain. He couldn’t break his heart any more than he already had.

He _was_ a bad person.

He saw it in his eyes, how he always saw who he was from Aaron. Except that view had become worse and worse, every time he looked, and now he could only stand it for a second.

And he walked away with disgust at himself that he felt _satisfaction_. Because he was a bad person. (He still would be - that was the easy option.)

They took everything from each other and that seemed only fair to him.

So they were both nothing now.

So it would be the last time he’d talk to him like that. Because there was nothing more left to take.


End file.
